I really thought it was legit because it had her own e-mail as a return address! Those spammers are getting trickier and more believable, aren't they.

Yup. Anyone remember the days when we got snail mail of diet articles with a hand-written post-it note saying "Thinking of you" and you wonder which of your friends mailed it to you? Now they've gone high tech using real email addresses and real people are getting blamed for the hurt and anger .

I would respond with "oops, looks like your email got hacked!" even if you don't think it was really spam. It conveys that you don't think it's something she would ever legitimately send. Her response to you, I think, will inform your next reply. If she takes the out, then I'd move on with no hard feelings. If she insists "No, I meant it for you, I thought it would be helpful!", then I would say outright, "That's very hurtful. I'm very upset you would send something like that to me."

What's sadly funny is that many direct sales/mlms use those exact tactics with their marks. Responding back to one of them is a great way to go too. Use that same, "Ooops, looks like you were spammed! You may want to get rid of that email pasword." First it let's them know that their marketing strategy didn't work. Second, you don't like mlms.

Never ever click on links sent like this. If your niece was actually rude enough to send you a weight loss program link (unless you had been asking her for it) like this without an explanatory note then she doesn't deserve a reply anyway but I seriously doubt it was intentionally sent by her. I would ask her if anything was wrong with her account as I had got a weird email from her to give her a heads up that her email account was compromised.

Part of the address in the link was Facebook Something, so I thought that Niece was sending me some fun photos or whatnot.

There wasn't anything about weight loss until I connected to the link.

The fact you even mentioned Facebook, that clinches it for me as Spam. (if not, yikes!)

My MIL recently was talking to me about some Dr Oz miracle thing that she insisted I had sent her. I informed her that I consider the guy to be a TV quack, and tho the substances he peddles don't hurt they probably don't help much with weight loss either. She insisted again that I had sent her this email, and that it must be the reason I have lost so much weight this year.

That is how I found out my email was hacked. My hard work hijacked by a hacker using Oz as their cover. Bleh.

Logged

“A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.” CS Lewis

DH once got an email from my bff about weight loss that involved some kind of pill or diet drink and he mentioned it to me. He had been trying to lose weight, which she knew about but she doesn't believe in fad stuff like pills or drinks, she is a firm believer in Weight Watchers and their methods so I told him it was spam and let her know.

Logged

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

I had my e-mail hacked like this once but I figured it out almost immediately. I use two different e-mail addresses for different things. I always keep my other e-mail address in each of my contacts. So when the hackers used one of my addresses to send out spam to my contacts, they sent it to ME at my other address too. Obviously, I knew that I didn't send myself spam. I immediately changed my passwords and apologized to my contacts if they received the spam.

I received a similar "thinking of you" email from a relative with a link to a website for a weight loss product. I weigh 107 lbs. I emailed the relative and he confirmed that his account had been hacked.

* Deleted my first response b/c I responded before I read all the other responses first! Same thing happened to my account. You are fortunate it was just about weight loss, LOL, emails were sent out to my friends and family about "unmentionable" acts and products. I panicked at first and sent my contact emails explaining that I had NOT sent that email.....Then I learned it was a common hacker thing. In the late 1980s I received a handwritten letter that had a photocopy of an ad about weight loss and someone had written across it something like, "thot you'd be interested in this!" I was really mystified and hurt for a while wondering which probable work acquaintance had sent such a thing to me. About a year or two later I figured out what it really was.

I really thought it was legit because it had her own e-mail as a return address! Those spammers are getting trickier and more believable, aren't they.

Yup. Anyone remember the days when we got snail mail of diet articles with a hand-written post-it note saying "Thinking of you" and you wonder which of your friends mailed it to you? Now they've gone high tech using real email addresses and real people are getting blamed for the hurt and anger .

CherryNanny got a version of this when I was younger - it was done to look like a newspaper article that had been cut out and someone had scrawled - "*Nanny*, try this, it really works!"

She was rather upset, and the entire family was on the warpath until we found out that several other people in the street had gotten similar.

I got a terse demand from my FATHER as to what was going through my head when I recommended he follow a link to male enhancement drugs...

...Yeah, I was horrified and completely baffled as to what he was talking about. It came from an addy I don't use much now anyway, but trying to explain it HAD to be spam... *sigh* that is one conversation I never want to relive... lol